A memory of James

“Maybe a Root Cellar?” said the note tucked into a book—one in a pile destined to get the heave ho. My husband John had been sorting through his books during spring break, adding to the heap of the kids’ outgrown winter clothes (and a few sacrificial stuffed animals) headed for the Salvation Army.

Really? Was John’s suggestion that this would make a good “column topic” (something of which I am always in quest) for real? What could I write?

The book, entitled “The Language of Nuclear War,” written by three Dartmouth students, Eric Semler, James Benjamin and Adam Gross (Harper &Row, 1987), is a Reagan era “dictionary” of nuclear weapons terminology including entries for weapons, strategies, slang, culture and history.

I flipped through the book with the thought that “Dr. Strangelove” is still alive and well in 2013. Especially in recent weeks, as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has directed menacing rhetoric against South Korea and the United States creating a diplomatic quandary.

As has been often reported of late, only a handful of countries have nuclear weapons. Others, such as North Korea and Iran, are said to be actively developing nuclear weapons.

And still, despite policies of non-proliferation as well as efforts to reduce Cold War arsenals, the world is littered with thousands of warheads. (As of December 2012, the U.S. was estimated to have a total of 7,650 warheads with 2,150 of those operational. The rest are in storage or awaiting dismantlement. Russia is estimated to have 8,420 total, with 1,720 operational, according to the Federation of American Scientists.)

The nuclear dictionary offers an obscene look at how language is twisted—indeed mutated—in the nuclear lexicon. In some ways this mutation can be scarier than any X-rated movie. For instance, the “Peacekeeper Missile” (the grim nickname of the MX missile) is a prime example.

And, it is interesting to see how nuclear terms have entered colloquial speech such as the phrase “nuclear winter” which was coined in 1983 to describe the possible aftermath of a nuclear war and has become the setting for a lot of dystopian fiction and movies. Another is the term “ground zero,” now used in reference to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001.

Kristin Barron is a writer and nurse. She has written for many of the local newspapers through the years including The River Reporter which currently publishes her monthly column "Rootcellar." She is a native of Hancock, NY where she lives with her family.